Mythic merging forty low population WAR servers
by Brooke Pilley 
Mar 10th 2009 at 12:30PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items
This news miraculously slipped under our radar yesterday because it was billed as yet another round of source server transfers. Upon reading a bit deeper, we noticed this line: "Characters on the source servers listed below will all be consolidated onto the corresponding destination server. All source servers will eventually be closed."There are 40 source servers and 15 destination servers listed in the table. This transfer and eventual merge will affect every server except Phoenix Throne, which is widely regarded as the most balanced and stable server for all of Warhammer Online.
Perhaps the most interesting part of all this is a speculative tool called the Warheap active server list. If you look at Mythic's official list of destination servers, you will notice that they almost identically match the only servers listed on Warheap with active rank 40 RvR taking place. We were originally sceptical about how accurate this tool was but now we're believers. The only question remaining is how accurate the activity numbers really are. (Incidentally, they are scraped from Mythic's very own Realm War site.)
Some people may take this news negatively, but WAR subscribers have been begging for server merges for months now. It appears they are finally getting their wish, which can only improve the game. You need people to RvR with, right?
UPDATE - Mark Jacobs made an official response:
"Folks,
Over the last few months we've been telling people to transfer off the lower population servers. Over this same amount of time people have been asking/telling/begging us to merge servers. So, now that almost all the people transferred off those servers, we've done just that. And of course, when we do that, some people here say "OMG Fail!"
As I've already said, if WAR was a PvE game, we wouldn't have closed those servers but since WAR is RvR-centric, leaving those servers open with their current population would not be a good idea. While these servers have been low population for quite a while once we told people to transfer off of them their population dropped too low for an RvR-centric game.
Oh, and as an FYI, once again our number of paying subs in NA went up again yesterday as did our PCU (even with backing out the trial accounts). These are undeniable facts, not spin.
Mark"
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nadril said on 12:35PM 3-10-2009
It's certainly a damn good start, finally. One of the major reasons why I left the game (aside from the lag and other issues) is that there was just no one to fight, even on a fairly populated server (Ungrim).
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DrunkenPandaren said on 3:41PM 3-11-2009
Jesus fucking christ yes. I have scen pops now.
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zkey14 said on 1:03PM 3-10-2009
Dang, just how many servers did this game launch with?
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DOW said on 1:10PM 3-10-2009
Is it really a "server merge" though? Those servers have already had all the active players transferred out to other locations.
It's more of a "data transfer" to put inactive characters into a new location so they can shut down unused hardware.
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PapaGouda said on 2:03PM 3-10-2009
There are actually still people on some of the old source servers. My 12 year old kid plays on one and there are people there playing and complaining that nobody is around.
Once they merge, you won't see a large increase in population on the target servers, but there will be a good few people moving over.
Garden of Eden said on 1:37PM 3-10-2009
WOW. I applaud them. Finally, a good decision.
get rid of scenarios, and I might come back.
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PapaGouda said on 2:03PM 3-10-2009
I remember the early days when all there was to do, it seemed, was grind scenarios. Now, though, they're more part of a bigger balance of things to do. I think it's more to do with people in oRvR than any content they've added, but it has greatly improved.
Stating that scenarios should be removed is a bit silly. They are, like anything else, great fun in proper moderation. Boring as hell, though, if that's all you do.
Houston said on 2:17PM 3-10-2009
Too little too late. Thank Mark Jacobs for a) caving to player demand and releasing a butt ton of servers at go live, and b) being stubborn and refusing to merge servers when it would have made a difference. You feel that sting, big boy, huh? That's pride ****** with you! You gotta fight through that ****!
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Green Armadillo said on 2:30PM 3-10-2009
Wow, I knew there were dead servers, but I didn't realize that there were only 15 viable ones out of 56. (Note that Ungrim is listed as both a source and a destination in the list, presumably that's a typo, leaving 14 destinations plus the one that won't be getting transfers.)
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Necator said on 2:35PM 3-10-2009
Wow nerd rage...
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moo said on 4:02PM 3-10-2009
They made far too many servers :\ I resubbed to the game for the EU version last week and all but 2 servers were Low and noone was about on the server with all my chars on but when it launched they were heavy.
Like Frigging merge the servers down to like 4 lol.
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SoupyFlow said on 4:45PM 3-10-2009
Great news! There should have been less servers at launch. But I am glad they are fixing the problem. Keep up the good work Mythic.
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MrDiamondJ said on 5:15PM 3-10-2009
FINALLY. I'm on Badlands, arguably the best server in the game, but I transferred there from the ghost town called Bretonnia so I really feel for players on empty servers. If you're on a server with a lot of people, WAR is loads of fun because you can hop into a group at any time and bash skulls in PvP, or find people for quests, or just solo for a while.
But if you're on an empty server the game is useless because the soloing (and crafting) gets old, and it isn't as deep or well-executed as, say, LOTRO. Most PQs (even after the 1.2 patch) still require groups of at least three people to complete in a reasonable amount of time, and scenario pops are based on having enough people in-world at one time to start one. If there's nobody around, you simply won't have anything to do but grind by yourself.
That said, I look at this as great news. It'll be a big improvement for a lot of people that have stuck around, and for those of us on the few good servers we'll have an influx of people. Win-win for the players...not so much for Mythic though.
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derella said on 10:12AM 3-11-2009
This was one of the main reasons I quit WAR. By the end of the first month, my med/med server was dead even during prime time.
Now all they have to do is re-make the some of the character models(high elves and empire, I'm looking at you), and I'll re-subscribe :)
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ttvp said on 2:54PM 3-11-2009
Huh, my characters are on Phoenix Throne, and I only chose that because that's where my friend started. I had no idea it was regarded as the best server.
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